Honesty
by Dawnshadow
Summary: When pillow talk goes horribly wrong. Neku/Joshua, spoilers!


Joshua came in through the window, again. Neku isn't sure why he doesn't just walk through the wall or something; it's October, and the night air is cool against his skin, at least. He shivers; he was hot after they finished_,_ but now he's starting to feel a little chilled. He reaches for the blanket.

Joshua wraps his arms around Neku before he can get to it and presses against his back. "Cold?" he asks, and although Neku isn't looking at him he can hear the smirk.

"I don't forgive you," Neku mutters.

"I know."

Even after months of this--whatever you called their fucked-up relationship--he still doesn't understand why Joshua did it. He hadn't forgiven (his partner? his enemy? his lover?) Joshua.

"You killed me." Neku turns in Joshua's arms (his skin is amazingly soft) to face him. "And you lied to me."

"I won't deny I killed you, but when did I lie to you?" Joshua's fingers draw small patterns against Neku's back.

"Mmn... that fake mission, where we ended up running through half of Shibuya?"

Joshua giggles. (It's too bouncy to be called a laugh.) "Well, that one was a bit of a trick, but I had to get you to Cat Street somehow. Think of it as a mission straight from the Composer Himself."

"It was still lying."

"Now, now, Neku," Joshua purrs, "it was all in your best interest. Aside from that, did I ever lie to you?"

Neku glares. "When you said you were alive?"

"That wasn't me, Neku," Joshua replies, smirking. "Not my fault some people jump to conclusions. Of course, once that was… common knowledge, I couldn't well announce my true identity, so I was forced to play along."

"And what about when you said you were going to the Shibuya River to kill the Composer?" Neku asks, and he feels Joshua tense slightly.

'That, Neku," Joshua answers, his smirk less natural, "was the truth."

Neku's eyes widen. "Then you meant to kill--"

"End Shibuya's existence by eliminating the Composer," Joshua says, not meeting Neku's eyes. "The power passes to the one who kills the composer. If the power has nowhere to go, nothing to sustain it…." He pulls away slightly. "Without a Composer guiding the Underground, Shibuya as it is would fade away. The talented souls gathered here would disperse, and it would be erased by time and entropy."

"You planned to destroy Shibuya by killing yourself?'

"I did," Joshua replies, his voice soft.

"Why?"

"Hanekoma didn't lie when he told you about him knowing me when I was alive," Joshua turns away from Neku, curls slightly. "I could see into the Underground. I watched the Game over and over, and I knew that I could be so much more than another student studying his head off, just for the chance to be a cog in the machine. I knew I had the potential to overthrow the Composer, to jack Shibuya. So, once I had a good strategy, I chose to play."

"So you _were_ a living player, at one point?"

Joshua's laugh is strange, almost bitter. "I didn't know such a thing was possible. It might not have been, back then."

Neku moves a little closer; the night is cold, and the window is still open. "So, when you said you 'chose to play,' you meant suicide there, too?"

"What else could I mean?" Joshua asks. "I knew my destiny. Life in the Realground had no use to me, no meaning. To truly live, I first had to shed my own mortality." Joshua turns his head to look at Neku. "It's not as if dying here, in the Realground, really means anything, anyway."

Neku attempts to protest, but Joshua puts a finger to his lips to silence him.

"Listen. You just go to the Underground if you die here. And, there, even being Erased isn't that bad. You see, the Soul will always survive, to be reshaped--perhaps into Noise, or into a Reaper, or into a new life. Even after the notes of a single passage fade, the instruments that made them remain part of the symphony."

"But… it does mean something, dying here. There are people who miss you, who love you."

Joshua turns away again, silent.

"You must have had someone--"

"No one missed me. I made sure of that." Joshua's voice sounds strange to Neku, thicker than usual.

"How?" Neku wraps an arm around Joshua, holds him to his chest, feels him shivering.

"I had to set priorities when I entered the Game. I only had a week to become Composer."

"You lost, didn't you?" Neku asks, his voice suddenly softer, almost sympathetic. Joshua doesn't respond in anything but a harsher shiver for several seconds.

"Hanekoma's the only one who remembers me alive, and that's only because he's not from the Realground. Everyone else--my parents, my friends, everyone--forgot me. My legacy was important to me, so all that remained of me in the Realground crumbled." He tries to draw away, but Neku holds him tighter. "It's n-not all that great a loss. I got what I wanted, after all."

Neku rubs soft circles across his chest. "But… you were planning to kill yourself again, and take Shibuya with you. Why? You had what you wanted."

"It… I thought Shibuya was corrupted, was poison, but then you… showed me how beautiful it really was…" His hands curl around Neku's arms. "In the end... I needed Shibuya. I needed you. I still need you."

"I'm here." Neku holds him a little tighter, nuzzles his shoulder. "I'm right here, Joshua."

"Don't go." Neku can't remember a time when Joshua sounded this way-- vulnerable, almost frightened. Neku's not sure he likes it.

"It's all right. I won't leave you." He tries to keep his voice soft, soothing. "You're my partner."

"And you... you're mine," Joshua echoes. "My partner, my chosen... and I nearly--"

"Shh." Neku rocks softly, still holding Joshua tightly. "You didn't. What you nearly did doesn't matter. 'Enjoy the moment,' you know?"

"Heh. I know."

Neku nods, continuing to rock softly. Joshua starts to relax in his arms, stifles a yawn. "Get some sleep," Neku says. "I'll be here when you wake up."

"Promise?" Joshua asks, even as he nestles closer.

"I promise," Neku replies, drawing the blankets around them again. "Rest." Neku feels him slowly go limp, hears his breathing grow soft and steady. He closes his own eyes then and lets the faint sounds of Shibuya at night be his lullaby.


End file.
